


constellations

by tentaclemonster



Series: 100 Fandoms Challenge [58]
Category: Broken Empire Series - Mark Lawrence
Genre: 100 Fandoms Challenge, Developing Friendships, Gen, Post-Emperor of Thorns, mentions of canon character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22832011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclemonster/pseuds/tentaclemonster
Summary: Months after Jorg’s death, Miana and Katherine watch the stars.
Relationships: Katherine of Scorron & Miana (Broken Empire Series)
Series: 100 Fandoms Challenge [58]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1257083
Kudos: 7
Collections: The 100 Multifandom Challenge





	constellations

**Author's Note:**

> 058/100 for the 100 Fandoms Challenge. Written for prompt #8 – star.

“You’re up late.” 

Katherine’s voice was soft enough not to startle Miana where she stood by the window even if her footsteps, only just loud enough to hear, hadn’t preceded her – but they had, and so Miana greeted Katherine with the slightest inclination of her head in her direction rather than a flinch. 

Katherine came to a stop next to her, leaning against the other side of the open archway. From the corner of her eye, Miana saw Katherine lift her head up to look at the night sky just as she was.

“As are you,” Miana replied, soft enough herself. The small space between them didn’t warrant voices raised much higher than a whisper. 

“I never dream anymore. I find sleep holds little attraction without it.”

“Whereas  _ I  _ would love nothing more than a full night’s worth of sleep, but I find motherhood doesn’t allow for so much as a minute of it.”

“I know nothing of motherhood,” Katherine said. The words were almost entirely inflectionless if not for just the barest hint of...something in them. Something sad or, perhaps, bitter. Before Miana could parse it out, however, Katherine asked abruptly, “What are you doing, then, rather than sleeping?”

Miana thought about pushing it. Didn’t. 

“Stargazing,” she answered instead. “I thought I might see if any of the constellations above Vyene were the same as home, but I don’t recognize any of them. Makin says there are probably books in the library here that say what these are, but I’ve yet to go searching for them.” 

“Ah.” A pause. Katherine’s hand came up, finger pointing. “Those there look like a bear’s head, don’t they?”

Miana squinted, then tilted her head. “More like Rike’s head, I would say.”

Katherine made a light sound that could’ve been a laugh, could’ve been a sigh. 

Miana’s stomach had a feeling at hearing it that might’ve been a flutter or might’ve just been hunger making itself known.

“Do you think you’ll ever go home again?” Katherine asked. “See the constellations you grew up with? Show them to your son?”

Miana frowned at that and shifted uncomfortably where she leaned against the wall. She turned to look at Katherine and was unsurprised when she found Katherine already looking at her, her green eyes bright and unreadable in the dim lighting of the Builder’s lights. 

“Do you?” Miana shot back rather than answering. 

Katherine was unruffled. She shrugged a single shoulder. 

“Where’s home?” she asked. “I don’t know if I’d recognize Scorron if I saw it again. I have no one to show it to, anyway.”

“Ancrath, then. Do you think you’ll ever go see your sister? Live with her?”

“I don’t think I’d recognize Sareth, either,” Katherine replied, the sadness and bitterness both entirely identifiable in her voice there. 

Miana stomach twinged at hearing that, too, and she knew the feeling had nothing to do with hunger. 

She was not unaware of why Katherine wouldn’t recognize her own sister. A part of her, the part her father had always called too tenacious for her own good, wanted to ask Katherine if Jorg’s death hadn’t eased some of Sareth’s pain, but she refrained. 

She tried to imagine how she would feel if William were killed and had no trouble as it was something she’d imagined quite often. Unlike Katherine, she did dream and those dreams were never good. The Pope’s assassin featured in many of them, only rather than trying to kill her, that pale faced man would stand over William’s crib with a knife while Miana could do nothing but watch as he raised the blade over his head and brought it brutally down. 

Miana wondered if she would have been consoled any if those nightmares were reality and the assassin who did the crime was killed, and she knew she wouldn’t be. Jorg murdering the Pope hadn’t eased her fears any, after all. Miana wouldn’t be surprised if hearing that Jorg had been killed did nothing to console Katherine’s sister, either. 

It wouldn’t suddenly make her son live again. It wouldn’t fill the crib he should have slept in or the absence of his laughter, his smile, his first steps, his life in Sareth’s memory.

Getting rid of the blade that made a wound didn’t heal it. Drop it in the ocean or take it to the farthest depths of hell and you would still be wounded, still prone to infection, to scarring. 

_ Better her than me _ , Miana thought. The relief was so strong in her that when Katherine frowned as though she could tell what Miana was thinking, Miana couldn’t even muster up a bit of shame at being so known. 

“My place is in Vyene with William,” Miana finally answered Katherine’s question. She turned away from her probing green eyes to look back up at the stars. “I’ll show him where his mother came from one day, but it’s too soon now. Perhaps we can make a tour of the whole empire when he’s old enough to remember it.”

“An ambitious plan,” Katherine commented idly. 

“He has ambition in his blood,” Miana said, and when she could feel Katherine go tense next to her, added, “from  _ my _ blood.”

Katherine remained tense for a moment then relaxed. That soft laugh came again.

“Let’s hope your blood wins out in him, then,” Katherine said, wry but genuine.

Miana’s lips twitched. She tamped down on her smile. “If you see a shooting star, wish on it for him. It couldn't hurt.”

“No, I suppose not.”

They fell into a comfortable silence. 

Above them the stars twinkled, bright and foreign. 


End file.
